Post navigation

Reading at the Table: David J. Bodenhamer, “The Revolutionary Constitution”

David J. Bodenhamer
Professor of History
Director, The Polis Center
IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI

September 13, 2012, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm, University Place Faculty Club

The annual Reading at the Table series provides a forum to celebrate published books written by IUPUI faculty. During each luncheon, the featured author will read from his/her work and open the floor to discussion. Buffet lunch is available for $11.80.

David J. Bodenhamer is Founder and Executive Director at The Polis Center, Professor of History, and Adjunct Professor of Informatics at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. He is the author or editor of several books on American legal and constitutional history, including Fair Trial: Rights of the Accused in American History, and is co-editor of the International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing.

In The Revolutionary Constitution, David J. Bodenhamer provides a comprehensive new look at America’s basic law, integrating the latest legal scholarship with historical context to highlight how it has evolved over time. The Constitution, he notes, was the product of the first modern revolution, and revolutions are, by definition, moments when the past shifts toward an unfamiliar future, one radically different from what was foreseen only a brief time earlier. In seeking to balance power and liberty, the framers established a structure that would allow future generations to continually readjust the scale. Bodenhamer explores this dynamic through seven major constitutional themes: federalism, balance of powers, property, representation, equality, rights, and security.